A phone call, a consultation request, or a referral from a physician. The first conversation is about understanding the situation — what's been happening, what's been tried, what you’re hoping for. There is no commitment required on either side.

What is hard:  It can feel like a small step. For many patients it has taken months of pain to make it. Dr. Siddiqi's team treats it accordingly.

Plan for 45 to 60 minutes. Dr. Siddiqi reviews your imaging, your history, and your goals. He explains what he sees in the joint and what the realistic options are — including non-surgical options, and including if surgery isn't the right call yet. Patients leave with a clear picture of where they stand and what the path forward looks like.

This is not a pre-op visit. Nothing is scheduled. Nothing is assumed. It is the conversation that should have happened earlier — and now it is.

What is hard:  For patients who have been managing pain for a long time, hearing a clear plan can bring up emotions that don't have an obvious name. That's normal. Take the time the appointment allows.

This is where the preparation begins — and where Dr. Siddiqi's approach diverges most clearly from the standard model. Before a surgery date is set, he evaluates biological readiness: nutritional status, inflammation markers, albumin levels. If the numbers aren't where they need to be for the best possible recovery, the surgery date waits while the preparation continues.

For some patients this window is 30 days. For others it's 90. The timeline is determined by the biology, not the calendar.

What is hard:  Being told the surgery needs to wait can feel like bad news. It isn't. It is the protocol working — and the patients who go through it recover differently.

By the time a patient walks through the door on surgery day, they have already spoken with Dr. Siddiqi, the anesthesia team, and the care coordinator. Every question has been answered. Every concern has been addressed. There should be no surprises at check-in — and if something comes up, Dr. Siddiqi is reachable.

The surgery takes between 60 and 90 minutes. He sees every patient in recovery. His team calls the family.

What is hard:  The first 48 hours after surgery are the hardest part of the recovery. Dr. Siddiqi tells patients this in advance — not to frighten them, but because knowing what's coming is the only thing that makes it manageable. Every patient knows exactly who to contact, at any hour, when something feels wrong. Someone will pick up.

Most of Dr. Siddiqi's patients go home the same day. That is not a shortcut. It is the engineered outcome of the surgical approach, the robotic precision standard, and a multimodal pain management protocol built specifically to make same-day discharge safe and appropriate. The patients who say "I was home by 4" are not the exception. They are the expectation.

Going home the same day means the recovery begins in a patient's own space — their own bed, their own routine, on their own terms. For most patients, that turns out to matter more than they expected.

What is hard:  The first week at home is where the reality of recovery sets in. The pain is manageable. The fatigue is real. The temptation to do too much too soon is common. The care plan addresses all of it — and the access to Dr. Siddiqi's team during this period is the same as it is on surgery day.

Every patient of Dr. Siddiqi's communicates with him and his team through a dedicated platform — not a call center, not a messaging portal with a two-day response window. Patients get answers within minutes. That is not an aspiration. It is the standard, held seven days a week.

If something feels wrong at 9 p.m. on a Sunday, there is a place to send that message and the certainty that it will be seen. Recovery doesn't follow a schedule. Neither does the access.

What is hard:  Knowing that access exists and remembering to use it are different things. Patients who reach out when something doesn't feel right almost always find that it's something manageable. Patients who wait and wonder almost always wish they hadn't.

Recovery from joint replacement surgery is a year-long process. The 90-day mark is when function starts to feel like function again — when stairs stop requiring a plan and sleep stops being interrupted. The one-year mark is when most patients stop thinking about the joint at all.

Dr. Siddiqi follows every patient through both milestones. The follow-up at 90 days and at one year isn't a formality. It's part of the protocol — a chance to assess what the data shows, address anything that isn't progressing as expected, and close the loop on a process that started months before the surgery.

What is hard:  Progress in joint replacement recovery isn't linear. There are days that feel like setbacks. They almost never are — but they feel that way, and that feeling is real. Dr. Siddiqi's team is available throughout the first year for exactly this reason.